


To Be Continued

by Mosca



Series: Five Worlds Without Shrimp [5]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:47:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once Wesley's resigned himself to dying, it begins to look like the easy way out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Continued

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this to my Livejournal in July 2007.
> 
> k beta read this. I wrote it for the 2007 Lynnevitational. 
> 
> The stories in "Five Worlds Without Shrimp" are all set in different universes, and each one stands alone. Each imagines a world in which the events of AtS are all about the journey of a secondary character. 
> 
> Additional warning for discussion of emotional and physical childhood abuse.

Wesley polishes his weapons, preparing for what is to be his final battle. His friends are all enjoying their last day on Earth, but Wesley hasn't much to enjoy anymore. Instead, he draws a cloth over bright, sharp metal. He's finished all the weapons he plans on taking -- a heavy but well-balanced broadsword, a lighter scimitar, a dagger for his belt and another for his sock -- and has moved on to the ones he's bidding farewell. It passes the time.

The clean blades reflect a distortion of his face. An apt metaphor. Which order of warriors coined the phrase, "Live by the sword, die by the sword"? Probably all of them, at one time or another. 

When the time comes, he straps his arsenal to his back and readies his magic. He wonders what it will feel like to die; he wonders what will come next. He has no illusions: he's damned himself. He hopes that Hell will be interesting and doubts it can be so much more painful than living.

He casts a fireball into his hand as he heads toward Vail's chamber. The arsenal will be his last resort. Someone taps him on the shoulder from behind. He opens his hand and sets fire to the carpet. So much for stealth. "Andrew," he sighs, stamping out the flames.

"I'm here to help," Andrew says.

"Please don't," Wesley says.

"I have an important message," Andrew says. "Mystical Watcher lore of the fearsome and potent Cyvus Vail."

"There isn't time," Wesley says. "Nor interest."

Andrew clears his throat nonetheless. He says, in a demon language Wesley recognizes but cannot place, "Do not use magic. Just hit him on the head."

Who knew that the boy could be useful? Surely he'd been sent by someone. In the process of considering how best to thank him, Wesley identifies the language. He's speaking Klingon. Thank God for the convergence of a Watcher's facility for languages, his pathetic adolescence, and many nights spent watching _Star Trek_ reruns with Charles. There is no word for "thank you" in Klingon. Wesley says the word for "Very good," instead, and Andrew misinterprets that as an invitation to tag along as Wesley storms Vail's chamber. Wesley is busy concealing his scimitar while Andrew dashes in. If Andrew had a gun, it would be blazing. Vail uses magic to grab Andrew by the throat and pin him to the wall. Wesley whips out the broadsword and relieves Vail of his head. 

Andrew gasps for breath. "Then my mission here is complete," he says. "I'm under pretty clear orders not to stick around for the big battle. Godspeed." He makes no indication of where he's headed, and it's clear that he has no intention of taking Wesley with him. Wesley is just as happy to be rid of him. His ridiculously affected speech, the thinly masked contempt for himself: it's as if Wesley were being forced to watch himself on videotape. 

It occurs to Wesley that he is not dead yet.

He is the first to arrive in the alley. The dead calm makes him shiver in the heat. It's so hot in Los Angeles, his body can't tell when to shiver and when to sweat. The others arrive one by one: Illyria, Spike, Angel, Charles. Charles is wounded, bleeding, suffering. Wesley knows of the last part, the suffering, because when he approaches Charles, he shies away like a frightened animal. 

There is a dragon in the sky. Wesley draws his broadsword. Charles slumps against a wall. Faith lands out of nowhere. "Glad there's some action," she says. "I would've hated to fly all the way from England to see you had it under control."

Wesley looks up at the army of horrors. His sword is very small. Hell is very close at hand. "We have it under control."

The dragon is descending fast. "Go," Faith says. "Run. Get out of here."

"But --"

"You won't last fifteen minutes out here," she says. She nods toward Gunn. "He won't last ten." When Wesley hesitates, she adds, "C'mon, I owe you one. Hell, I owe you a whole bunch."

He looks to Angel, who is staring into the sky, into the abyss. "Charles needs help," he shouts.

"So do I," Angel says. "Or is the army of evil my imagination?"

"He's dying," Wesley says. "Are you going to let him?"

Angel looks at Charles, at the sky, at Charles. "No," he says. "Someone who knows the truth has to live through this."

"Where do I take him?" Wesley asks Faith.

She points. "Bus station's that way."

He lays down his broadsword and scimitar and half-carries Charles to the bus depot. A coach to Phoenix will leave in twenty minutes, and Wesley buys two tickets. "Is your friend all right?" the cashier says. 

"Please, we just need to get out of here as quickly as possible," Wesley says.

"I hear you," she says. "I do." She produces a first aid kit from a drawer under the counter. "Hang on, I got some Advil in my purse." 

Wesley has repaired enough wounds to see that Charles's is painful but shallow. Wesley wraps him in gauze and tapes him back together. He measures out six Advil tablets, and Charles dry-swallows them all at once. "You saving my life, English?" he croaks.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Wesley says.

The bus pulls into the station, and they choose a pair of seats. Almost immediately, Charles falls asleep on Wesley's shoulder. There is a chance he will never wake up, but Wes doesn't believe he has the power to interfere with that. He's brought nothing to read, and the ride through the desert seems endless. Every so often, he checks Charles's pulse. It is slow, even, peaceful. The sun sinks ostentatiously into the orange stone formations on the horizon. Barring a horrific bus crash, today will not be Wesley's last day on earth. He looks out on the desert, its bleak golden reach, and he thinks, another apt metaphor.

Charles wakes up as the bus reaches Phoenix. "How are you feeling?" Wesley says.

"Thirsty," Charles says. He smiles. "Alive." He walks on his own into the Phoenix bus terminal. "Do you want to stay here," he says, "or should we keep moving?"

Wesley squints at the departures board. "If we get back on the same bus in an hour, it will take us to El Paso, Texas."

"Texas," Charles echoes. His reverence reflects a shared sensation: the whisper of Fred's ghost on the backs of their necks.

Wesley goes to the ticket counter and asks the cashier for two tickets to Texas. "Where in?" she says. "It's a big state."

Something about El Paso seems wrong. It's not arbitrary enough, or it's not far enough away. "What's the capital?" he says.

"Of Texas? Austin." The cashier sounds proud of herself for knowing this.

"Then we'll go there," he says.

It's past midnight, but the bus terminal's convenience store is open. Charles has wandered there, and Wesley joins him. Neither of them has died on the day they were meant to, and that means they'd both best avoid starvation. While their bus refuels, they sit in plastic chairs and feast on Doritos and M&Ms. 

They sleep most of the way to El Paso. The next leg of the trip takes them through a series of small cities to San Antonio; they play highway games and read the terrible magazines Wesley bought in Phoenix. It's as if they were normal men on a normal bus trip, as if they had not spent the previous day battling evil and setting off an apocalypse. The deeper into Texas they travel, the more this revisionist history prevails.

Their third bus deposits them in downtown Austin with nothing but the clothes on their backs, a few weapons, and Wolfram & Hart bank accounts fat enough to keep them fed and sheltered for at least a few months. They find a hotel and settle in. Wesley feels obligated to phone Rupert Giles and make sure Andrew has returned safely, to confirm what must have happened to Angel, Spike, and Faith. Reciting that list of names plunges Wesley into mourning, and he does not emerge from it for over a week. They deserved to live, and he deserved to die. Charles tries to persuade him that it is not so simple, it never is, but even Charles's best legal technique relies on logic. And there is no logic in this, any of this.

Finally, Charles's patience expires. "Are we staying here?" he says. 

"You're as capable as I am of making that decision," Wesley says.

"I'd rather not get on another bus," Charles says. "But it's your call."

"Then we stay," Wesley says. "We stay and we... we live." In the ensuing days, they find an apartment and lease a car. Charles's legal education might be the result of magic, but Wolfram & Hart has been impeccably thorough, and he has little trouble getting a job as an associate litigator at one of the local law firms. As for Wesley, it turns out that Austin is a university town, and he finds work as an adjunct professor in the Classics department. His Oxford D.Phil. in Ancient Languages has gathered significant dust, but it is no figment of the imagination. He is teaching beginning and intermediate Latin and Greek; he is told that if things work out, he might be given a literature course or a trial run at Sanskrit. He is a mediocre instructor, but unenthusiastic students don't bother with Latin, so his missteps are most often forgiven.

Briefly, Wesley deludes himself that he and Charles might settle into a quiet life. He's not sure how Rupert obtains his phone number -- perhaps the Classics department's website is to blame. "I know it's a terrible imposition," Rupert says without a trace of apology in his voice, "but we're rather in over our heads here with all the new slayers. Would -- would you -- I wouldn't imagine you'd be willing to... watch over a few of them."

"Absolutely not," Wesley says. "Even if I weren't barred from doing so --"

"The Council as you knew it no longer exists," Rupert says. "And what has taken its place is disastrously short-staffed."

"No," Wesley says.

There is a pleading silence on the other end of the line.

"Perhaps one," Wesley says.

"I was thinking more along the lines of five or six," Rupert says.

Wesley sighs loudly. "No more than two."

"Three," Rupert says. "For the love of God, please say you'll take three of them."

Already regretting it, Wesley acquiesces. He persuades Rupert to give them a month to prepare, during which he and Charles commit to a mortgage on a house large enough for three teenage girls. Wesley does suggest that Charles would not be out of line if he wished to get a home of his own and be spared Rupert's trio of throwaway slayers, but Gunn's only response is to roll his eyes. 

Rupert sends an odd assortment of problem cases. Shontelle is from Baltimore, Maryland, and her initial air of toughness gives way to a warm and bubbly demeanor. Zhanna is from St. Petersburg, and _her_ intractability is no act. It's nearly impossible to jostle her from her default pose of headphones in ears, gum in mouth, bored expression on face. The third girl, Priya, comes from Calcutta; she is curious, good-natured, fiercely bright, and illiterate. She seems simultaneously much older and much younger than the other two.

Shontelle takes to Charles immediately, a connection arising perhaps from shared ethnic background or perhaps simply from complementary personalities. She convinces him to enroll her and Zhanna in high school, to let them have a life beyond training and patrolling. Priya, with her unique talents and vexing limitations, must be home-schooled, and Wesley's life becomes a hectic balance between grading tests and instructing Priya in elementary reading and advanced demonology. He cannot quit his job at the university: as long as he's steadily employed, his green card remains unproblematic, and the University of Texas's special collections library has a useful archive of rare mystical texts. Charles has to work ninety-hour weeks until he makes partner at the law firm. "Remember the days when we used to sit around polishing weapons and watching _Star Trek_ , waiting for the phone to ring?" Charles says.

"Fondly," Wesley says. 

"Now it's all, go to work, raise the kids... Tell me, Wes, when did I marry you?"

The question hangs in the air until it's punctuated by a shriek from the kitchen. Priya, washing dishes, has dropped a plate. Wesley runs to comfort her; Charles runs to clean up the mess. This behavior only intensifies the marriage issue. When the dish has been dealt with, Wesley half-drags Charles up to his bedroom. All of the girls are doing chores; they'll have a few minutes' privacy. "If it's time for you to move on," Wesley says, "I'll understand."

"That's the thing," Charles says. "I don't think that time's gonna come." He takes Wesley's hand in both of his and casts his eyes down, bringing Wesley's own gaze with him. They are seeing the same thing: the intertwining of Charles's dark fingers and Wesley's pale ones. Metaphors again. Charles says, "You haven't thought about it?"

"It's been months since I've thought about anything," Wesley says. "I'm too _tired_."

"But back in the weapon-polishing days?" Charles says.

"Well, _then_ ," Wesley says. "But you didn't."

A roll of the eyes.

"After -- after the girls go to sleep," Wesley says. "We should discuss this."

After the girls go to sleep, there is no discussion, only a long, abandoned kiss in Charles's darkened room. Fumbling with clothes and then with body parts, Charles completely new to this, Wesley's experiences approximately as dusty as his D.Phil. Charles's arousal salty on his tongue, the sticky-sweet aftertaste of release. Four years of waiting for the phone to ring, and now they've answered.

It's as if they've skipped all the difficult and dangerous parts of love and settled into the comforting ones. The thrill ride of desire has mostly ended in embarrassment. Wesley prefers this fulfillment of needs, this gathering of spare hours for intimacy that feels both stolen and earned. Stealing one snooze button interval to wake up in Charles's warm arms.

They fret over how to inform the girls, but the girls already know. They assumed it when they arrived, have been marveling at the quaint pretense of separate bedrooms. Charles's law firm offers domestic partner health benefits. Despite hints from Shontelle that Wesley's room should become hers, it's turned into a study.

Through enforced diligence, the girls' slayer skills are improving. Charles stresses teamwork, and the girls choose their roles. Shontelle is the leader and strategist. When she can be bothered to spit out her gum, Zhanna is fastest and most powerful in a fight. Priya brings knowledge and ingenuity. For thousands of years, slayers have worked alone, but there's no reason to demand that anymore. Like any city, Austin has its share of evil creatures, and it seems that Wesley and Charles were not the only refugees from L.A.'s supernatural underworld to make the bus trip east. It is terrifying to send the girls out on patrol, and the terror doesn't subside when they return victorious.

They drive him crazy. Fifteen-year-olds need limits and rules so they have something to chafe against. Shontelle hates her curfew, wants to skip her weekend patrols so she can go out with her friends. In addition to the nagging about homework and training, Zhanna's clothing budget must be kept in check. Even sweet, obedient Priya is turning into a petulant teenager, especially since the other two taught her how to put on lipstick and eat potato chips in front of the television. Wesley has to remind himself not to raise his voice too loud, not to punish too harshly. After a long day proctoring exams, he catches Zhanna on the back stoop smoking a cigarette, and he erupts. He is shocked to see her cower, curve her back and protect her face, preparing for a blow.

He pauses, takes a breath. She uncoils, looking up at him, small. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll be good, I'll be better --"

He holds his hands out in front of him and lowers them slowly. "I will never," he says. "I promise you, I will never."

She cocks her head at him cynically.

"You're still grounded this weekend," he says. This actually makes her smile a little. 

"Can we practice sparring?" she says. "I know it is not the time, but I'm bored." 

He'd thought Priya was the most like him, the one he would be most apt to understand. He wonders if Zhanna had time to take her revenge before she left home. He hopes she did, and he hopes she didn't. Either way, it can't have helped. 

"You're weak," his father used to tell him, in the guise of motivating him to study harder, of justifying another deprivation of food and light, of dismissing a wince at the breakfast table. "You'll never survive the evils of the world." Father seemed to hope that Wesley would die before he could make too much of a mess. Messes he has made, but he likes to think he's done some good as well. He likes to think this life is his revenge.

He's begun to replace his arsenal. For the girls' training, he says, and the reimbursement cheque from Rupert reinforces that fiction. He has one broadsword that the girls know they are not to touch. When they're out patrolling, sometimes he'll take it into the backyard and swing at nothing for a while. With the good sense not to sneak up on a man wielding a broadsword, Charles calls from the stoop, "Battling ghosts?"

"Invisible elves," Wesley says. 

He lowers the sword. Charles approaches him slowly, embraces him from behind, makes him drop the sword altogether. It lands on the lawn at an angle that catches the moonlight and magnifies it, casting a bright beam into their faces. "Think it means something?" Charles says.

"It always means something," Wesley says.


End file.
